"Then they are practically prisoners?" "My dear Mr. Willoughby, this is Africa. In Europe you put fences round your cattle: the negroes are just cattle. Break your fences, and your animals stray and are lost. So with the niggers." "But that is slavery." "Words! words!" said Reinecke lightly. "They are no more slaves than the apprentices who are bound to their masters for a term of years. They are indentured labourers. They are paid; and there’s not a man among them but accumulates enough to make him rich when his time is up." "They can go to their homes, then, when their time is up?" Reinecke shrugged. "As they please," he said. "They have a long way to go. See, Mr. Willoughby, I give you a page from German colonial history. Twenty years ago, in our early days, our brave pioneers of empire had enormous difficulties to contend with. There was one savage tribe, the Wahehe some two hundred miles north of us here, that resisted our civilising mission with especial pertinacity and violence. On August 17, ’91, they gained a victory over our much-tried soldiers. They dispersed as we approached, but when the column of Captain von Zelewski was passing through a rugged and densely-grown country it was attacked along its whole length by thousands of the treacherous dogs. Zelewski was among the first to fall; taken at a disadvantage his column was almost annihilated. Ten Germans, sir--ten Germans, I say, as well as over three hundred askaris and porters, were slain. The gallant Lieutenant von Tettenborn fought his way back with a few survivors to Kondoa, and thence reached the coast." "We’ve had many incidents of that sort in India and elsewhere," said Tom. "I suppose there was a punitive expedition?" "There was, sir; but not until three years had passed. For three years those treacherous swine were allowed to flout the German might. Then, in October ’94, we captured and destroyed Iringa, their principal village, and were again attacked in the woods on our way to the coast. Some of the petty chiefs held out against us for years, but the German destructive sword is very sure. Finally they were terribly subdued, and some hundreds of them were transported into this Tanganyika country and compelled to earn their living by peaceful toil. My people here are Wahehe. I have one of the very chiefs who opposed us--one Mirambo, a great hunter in his youth. I need not say that I find his woodcraft very useful when I go hunting. By the way, he carried Captain Goltermann’s gun the other day. And now you see, Mr. Willoughby, how well off these people are. They might have been treated as rebels; they might have suffered as prisoners of war. Instead, they are indentured labourers, engaged, for pay, in producing a useful commodity--with no profit to their employers, mark you. My dear sir, it is philanthropy."